Sewing Project!

Last week I came across a new clothing website. Acrimony. They sell a beautiful collection of pieces created by a number of different designers. I fell in love with a few items on their site but, unfortunately, the price tag on most of them is hefty. Sigh. There was one piece in particular that I kept going back to. I’ve been looking for a sewing project to work on with the guidance of my highly skilled clothing designer friend, Alison Bannister. I sent a picture of the piece from Acrimony off to Alison to see if it was feasible for me to tackle. That’s the wrong question to ask Alison because in my eyes she can make just about anything. She responded with, “On a scale of 1-10 this is about a 7 in terms of difficulty but, I’m always up for a challenge!” 

Yesterday, I walked over to her place at 11:30am. We opened up the picture of the selected piece: a zip back bustier with slightly padded bust and some boning for shape. Alison had already pulled 3 patterns from her archives that she felt could start us down the right path. Together, we selected one and I started cutting. I have to be honest, I had NO idea what I had gotten myself  into with this piece. But, Alison knew exactly what we needed to do to get to the finish line. So, Max made us morning mojitos and we got started! 
First, I made a “dummy” piece. This involved cutting the pattern out of muslin (in our case some other fabric that we had a lot of) and sewing it together so you can do a fitting. Then, we drew right on the fabric to create a new pattern. Although I did most of the cutting, pinning, sewing and measuring myself, Alison was in the driver’s seat when it came to drawing up a new pattern, deciding where to cut, etc. Once the lines were drawn onto the dummy piece we took it off, cut it up, true’d it up so the new patterns lines were symmetrical and cut out a new pattern adding a 5/8th seam allowance on the perimeter of each piece. HOLY CRAP that was a lot of cutting! Eventually, we visited Alison’s “trunk of junk” to pick out some fabric. It’s pretty much a gold mine in there so, I think the trunk might need a new name. I found the perfect fabrics for this piece with Alison’s assistance, located the grain line on the fabric and started pinning/cutting. By the time all of that was finished...it was 4:30pm and I was exhausted in the best kind of way. I looked over at Alison who had taken a break from the dress she was making to write some things down. This way, we can remember “the plan” when we revisit the project. Next, I have to buy a yard of black cotton fabric for the liner (which will require all of the same shapes be cut out and sewn together again-the 3rd time, EEK) and a zipper. I am game. I love this process! No wonder the piece on line cost $286. It should for the amount of work it takes to make. 

Alison, thanks for all of your guidance! See you again soon. XO.